@Balewolf see @toadchild 's post. I kind of figured it out from how it was worded. The Infinity rules are written in a very idiosyncratic way.
Here's what I think happened: Shock ammo is written in an obtuse manner for N3, causing confusion. Because of complaints about 1, Viral is written more clearly for HS N3, matching up with the original intent. Unaware 2, whoever wrote the FAQ interpreted the (ambiguous)Shock ammo rules in what they perceived to be a strict-RAW manner, probably just so it was in line with the Spanish Infinity community's custom.
Corvus Belli are not God. Sometimes they do things that we applaud, and amaze us, other times they do things that are status quo and fall in line with our expectations, and occasionally they make mistakes and drop the ball--we still need to hold them accountable for that. It's no different with any other gaming company that you patronize. It's the same with your school teacher, spouse, government, whatever. Some people need to drop the assumption that every move made 'officially' has been made by someone who understands the game better than the players, and has been rigorously checked for human error. History in general has always shown this to be untrue.
Aye, especially the silliness that was ‘coordinated orders can spend any regular order, from any combat group’
Not being part of the design process I'm not quite sure of this, but it seems to me that we should treat each ammo type as a succinct entity for their effects rather than trying to apply consistency between them. It seems reading viral and shock side by side that the effect of specifically canceling dogged/NWI even without killing the target, wasn't carried over to viral, possibly because of the extra roll, possibly because it goes on BTS, possibly because once you ad both, it would be too much for one ammo type to do all at once... On the other hand it also seems that it was at least considered as an option to replace or update shock just like with Flash, which was either decided against or the first best chance to change it was missed...
Sure, Corvus Belli aren't infallible in matters of their game, and we're most certainly all free to have opinions about their game and to discuss and develop new units and weapons, missions, house rules and even entirely separate game systems. However, I'm aware that the Directors have spent the best part of their adult lives designing Infinity, and building Corvus Belli into an international company that supports their designs as a going concern to which they remain committed on a daily basis. Having not made that sort of commitment myself - and since I also don't flatter myself to think I'd have the talent to make much of it if I did, I try to avoid the conceit that my opinions could be or somehow should be of equal value to theirs; because they are not.
@Wolf I know you have some extremely vociferous opinions about the game that don't match up with how the CB team plays the game. So I know you think that some things are worth calling out... going by previous forum posts that people here cited, it was always intended to have the same red box as viral in N3 but someone missed the memo.
A player's opinions would be equal or better than that of the developers when they are more objectively correct, which in fact comes up significantly often.
I find often that, when it comes to successful products, players tend to be better at details while developers are better at the grand design. A player can point at a detail and say "this is wrong and probably works better this way" and be right, but the developer can point at the product and say "okay, but the quirks and iffiness is necessary to not make it interact weirdly or too well in numerous other places and it's just not worth changing for now"
Opinions - by definition, are about beliefs and judgements in the absence of facts. Once things are objectively known, they're hardly a matter of opinion any more, are they? What I'm talking about here is how much we should value opinions when we don't know if they're right or wrong, and yes - I'm saying we should value some more opinions more highly than others. I'm sorry if that offends people who, despite not working on a daily basis to ensure the game is balanced and playable, think their opinion about the rules is worth more than that of the people who do.
We don't know for sure that it was supposed to, but we know that it was at least considered as an option. The optimal solution to this and a few of the more common topics would be more frequent FAQs, but with the release schedule for the rest of the year I think that's not going to start soon if ever...
How about we discuss without personal attacks and assumptions? Edit I am not sure it has been mentioned but all the questions asked have been asked and pointed out by Warcors before the FAQ was released, so yes, its a conscious decision that takes into account the implications.